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Background: Freezing of gait (FOG) is one of the most disabling gait disorders affecting 80% of patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). Clinical guidelines recommend a behavioral approach for gait rehabilitation, but there is a wide diversity of behavioral modalities. Objective: The objective of this network meta-analysis was to compare the effectiveness of different behavioral interventions for FOG management in PD patients. Methods: Six databases were searched for randomized controlled trials of behavioral interventions for FOG management among PD patients from 1990 to December 2021. Bayesian network meta-analysis was used to combine both direct and indirect trial evidence on treatment effectiveness, while the surface under the cumulative ranking (SUCRA) score was used to estimate the ranked probability of intervention effectiveness. Results: Forty-six studies were included in the qualitative synthesis. Among, 36 studies (1454 patients) of 72 interventions or control conditions (12 classes) were included in the network meta-analysis, with a mean intervention period of 10.3 weeks. After adjusting for the moderating effect of baseline FOG severity, obstacle training [SMD −2.1; 95% credible interval (Crl): −3.3, −0.86], gait training with treadmill (SMD −1.2; 95% Crl: −2.0, −0.34), action observation training (SMD −1.0; 95% Crl: −1.9, −0.14), conventional physiotherapy (SMD −0.70; 95% Crl: −1.3, −0.12) and general exercise (SMD −0.64; 95% Crl: −1.2, −0.11) demonstrated significant improvement on immediate FOG severity compared to usual care. The SUCRA rankings suggest that obstacle training, gait training on treadmill and general exercises are most likely to reduce FOG severity. Conclusion: Obstacle training, gait training on treadmill, general exercises, action observation training and conventional physiotherapy demonstrated immediate real-life benefits on FOG symptoms among patients with mild–moderate PD. With the promising findings, the sustained effects of high complexity motor training combined with attentional/cognitive strategy should be further explored. Future trials with rigorous research designs using both subjective and objective outcome measures, long-term follow-up and cost-effective analysis are warranted to establish effective behavioral strategies for FOG management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the section "Clinical implications and recommendations", second paragraph should read as As for community rehabilitation, general exercises demonstrated an evident medium effect size of 0.51 compared to usual care (beyond the 95% Crl). The sole practice of exercises without high complexity motor training or cognitive compensation strategy might be inadequate to ameliorate FOG in PD patients. [Extracted from the article]

Purpose: Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) is an increasingly critical outcome of chronic illness care. However, its disease-independent attributes, particularly its spiritual resilient indicators, for people with Parkinson's disease (PD) have not been explicitly examined. This study aimed to (i) assess the associations between psychological distress, spiritual resilience and HRQOL, and (ii) examine the mediating effects of spiritual resilience on psychological distress and HRQOL amongst individuals with PD. Methods: This is a secondary data analysis of the baseline data of a clinical trial that involved 138 individuals with PD. The subjects completed a structured questionnaire assessing psychological distress in terms of anxiety and depression, spiritual resilience in terms of perceived affliction and perceived equanimity, severity of motor symptoms and disease-specific HRQOL. Results: Analysis by independent t test suggested that distressed individuals with PD demonstrated less spiritual resilience and presented poorer HRQOL than non-distressed individuals with PD. Multiple linear regression models revealed that high emotional distress was associated with low spiritual resilience and poor HRQOL. The mediation analysis found that after simultaneously controlling for the degree of perceived affliction and perceived equanimity, a significant reduction was observed in the direct effect between psychological distress and HRQOL. This result indicated the partially mediating roles of perceived affliction and equanimity in the pathways between psychological distress and HRQOL. Conclusion: In order to enhance HRQOL, PD interventions should address the spiritual resilience of patients in addition to providing psychological care and physical relief of symptoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neurodegenerative diseases (NDDs) are characterized by neuronal damage and progressive loss of neuron function. Microbiome-based interventions, such as dietary interventions, biotics, and fecal microbiome transplant, have been proposed as a novel approach to managing symptoms and modulating disease progression. Emerging clinical trials have investigated the efficacy of interventions modulating the GM in alleviating or reversing disease progression, yet no comprehensive synthesis have been done. A systematic review of the literature was therefore conducted to investigate the efficacy of microbiome-modulating methods. The search yielded 4051 articles, with 15 clinical trials included. The overall risk of bias was moderate in most studies. Most microbiome-modulating interventions changed the GM composition. Despite inconsistent changes in GM composition, the meta-analysis showed that microbiome-modulating interventions improved disease burden (SMD, − 0.57; 95% CI − 0.93 to − 0.21; I2 = 42%; P = 0.002) with a qualitative trend of improvement in constipation. However, current studies have high methodological heterogeneity and small sample sizes, requiring more well-designed and controlled studies to elucidate the complex linkage between microbiome, microbiome-modulating interventions, and NDDs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]